Traditional ecological knowledge
The report declared that tribal and indigenous peoples had lifestyles that could provide modern societies with lessons for management of resources in complex forest, mountain, and dryland ecosystems.
Fulvio Mazzocchi of the Italian National Research Council's Institute of Atmospheric Pollution outlines the characteristics of TEK as follows: Traditional knowledge has developed a concept of the environment that emphasizes the symbiotic character of humans and nature.
Moreover, it supplies much of the world's population with the principal means to fulfil their basic needs, and forms the basis for decisions and strategies in many practical aspects, including interpretation of meteorological phenomena, medical treatment, water management, production of clothing, navigation, agriculture and husbandry, hunting and fishing, and biological classification systems....
Beyond its obvious benefit for the people who rely on this knowledge, it might provide humanity as a whole with new biological and ecological insights; it has potential value for the management of natural resources and might be useful in conservation education as well as in development planning and environmental assessment.
[7] The term TEK has been criticised as a form of intellectual appropriation that modifies traditional/indigenous knowledges to better fit a conventional Western modern science framework.
"[9] The first aspect of traditional ecological knowledge incorporates the factual, specific observations generated by recognition, naming, and classification of discrete components of the environment.
This type of "empirical knowledge consists of a set of generalized observations conducted over a long period of time and reinforced by accounts of other TEK holders.
[9] The third facet refers to the time dimension of TEK, focusing on past and current uses of the environment transmitted through oral history,[10] such as land use, settlement, occupancy, and harvest levels.
This can be achieved by scientists and researchers collaborating with Indigenous peoples through a consensus decision-making process while meeting the socioeconomic, political and cultural needs of current and future generations.
[16] The rising temperature poses a threat for ecosystems including the locations where plants grow, the times that insects emerge throughout the year, and changes to the seasonal habitats of animals.
[19][failed verification] Traditional ecological knowledge can help provide information about climate change across generations and geography of the actual residents in the area.
[17][16] The National Resource Conservation Service of the United States Department of Agriculture has used methods of the indigenous people to combat climate change conditions.
"[20] Environmental studies professor Tony Marks-Block, ecological researcher Frank K. Lake, and tropical forester Lisa M. Curran explained how the Karuk and the Yurok Tribes organized controlled burns and fuel reduction treatments in their ancestral territories to reduce wildfire risk and "restore ecocultural resources depleted from decades of fire exclusion".
[22][further explanation needed] Indigenous philosopher and climate/environmental justice scholar Kyle Powys Whyte writes "Anishinaabek/Neshnabék throughout the Great Lakes region are at the forefront of native species conservation and ecological restoration projects that seek to learn from, adapt, and put into practice local human and nonhuman relationships and stories at the convergence of deep Anishinaabe history and the disruptiveness of industrial settler campaigns.
"[23] Ecological scholars Paul Guernsey, Kyle Keeler and Lummi member Jeremiah Julius describe in a paper how "In 2018, the Lummi Nation dedicated itself to a Totem Pole Journey across the United States calling for the return of their relative "Lolita" (a Southern Resident Killer Whale) to her home waters.... [additionally] asking for NOAA to collaborate in feeding the whales until the chinook runs of the Puget Sound can sustain them.
[25][failed verification] One paper suggests mitigating the negative impacts of colonial-era and more recent corporate land management practices could be achieved through a revival of traditional farming methods.
